“We aren’t quitting. We’re going to keep taking from the rich and giving to the poor until there isn’t anything left to take. We’re going to break Calder.”
“No. If you don’t stop stealing cattle, I’ll go to Calder and tell him what you’re doing,” she threatened.
“No, you won’t.” He shook his head, unalarmed by her threat. “You won’t send your father and brother to prison. Right now Chase Calder has you blinded, but the day will come when you’ll see what the Calders are really like. They think they are so big and powerful that they can do anything they want and get away with it. But they won’t—not as long as there’s an O’Rourke around.” He studied her, then gave a decisive nod. “You’ll keep quiet about what you know.”
Her father was right. It had been an empty threat. She wouldn’t tell old man Calder or Chase that her father and brother had joined up with Bob Tucker to rustle Triple C cattle. She couldn’t turn in her own family.
“You’d better get some lunch on the table,” Angus advised now that he had silenced her argument for good. “We’ve had a full morning’s work and we have to meet Tucker in town to start working out the details of which spot we’re going to hit next.”
In a numbed state, Maggie prepared the noon meal and put it on the table for them. She had no appetite as she picked at the food on her plate. While she listened to the confident voices of her father and brother, there was no question in her mind that her loyalty was to them, but how could she meet Chase again, knowing what she did? If she saw him and didn’t mention anything, then wasn’t she a party to the rustling? But if she stopped meeting him, wouldn’t he become suspicious and wonder why? She was caught in the middle with no way to turn.
The theft of the cattle had meant a lot of extra work at the Triple C, so it had been a week since she’d seen him for more than a couple of minutes, just long enough for Chase to explain why he coul
dn’t stay. Maybe he wouldn’t be able to make it tomorrow afternoon, either, Maggie hoped. Then perhaps she’d have time to decide the best way to handle the situation.
But he was there waiting for her when she arrived the next day. His horse was grazing in the wildflower-strewn meadow in the section they called the Broken Bluff. Chase walked forward to meet her, the white flash of his smile showing against the layered tan of his features. Maggie stopped her horse before she reached him and slipped out of the saddle without giving him a chance to help her down. She let the reins trail the ground and patted her horse’s neck, not looking at Chase when he walked up to her, postponing the moment when she had to meet his eyes.
“I thought you might be too busy to come today.” She gave him an immediate opening to say he had to leave.
“We’re busy, all right, but not that busy.” A hand was hidden behind his back. He brought it around to offer her a bouquet of wildflowers. “These are for you, Maggie.”
Her throat grew tight when she looked at the collection of riotous color held in that large, masculine hand. She reached for them hesitantly, encircling their stems with her fingers and lifting them to her face to inhale their wild fragrance.
“No one’s ever given me flowers before.” She glanced into the dark intensity of his eyes and ached inside.
There was a faint curve to his mouth. “If any of the boys saw me picking those flowers, they would never let me hear the end of it.”
She could well imagine how much he would get ribbed if he had been seen doing something so blatantly romantic. It was difficult for her to imagine this virile and husky man picking flowers. Such sentimentality didn’t seem to fit the image of rough, raw manhood.
“Do you like them?” he prompted.
“Yes.” Maggie nodded, unable to lift her gaze from the bouquet, her fingertips lightly tracing the satiny petals.
The point of his finger raised her chin. “Then how about thanking me for them?” he suggested.
Her gaze went no higher than his mouth, its strong, firm line coming toward her. She was shaken by a fervent need to know the forgetfulness of his embrace, the heady wildness his kiss could bring. She didn’t wait for his lips to complete their descent to claim hers. Instead, she flung herself into his arms, the bouquet slipping from her hands as they wound around the thick column of his neck. Her mouth moved hungrily and desperately over his.
She was seeking and demanding, driving against him with her lips and her body. There was heat. There was fire. There was the wild tingling in her loins. But she didn’t find the needed assuagement for that niggling feeling of duplicity. The steel band of his arms and the fierce pressure of his roaming hands tried to absorb her into his body, but the physical impossibility of such a feat soon made itself known. Slowly, crying inside, she turned her face away from him and pushed at his shoulders.
“The flowers. I dropped the flowers.” She used them as an excuse to end an embrace that fulfilled every physical and emotional need except one.
Chase was reluctant to let her go because he sensed that he had somehow failed her. He mouthed the sensitive spot on the curve of her neck, knowing how the caress always aroused her and feeling the subsequent shivers of stimulation, but she continued to resist him. Confused by her conflicting signals, he loosened his hold and she quickly moved out of his arms, bending to pick up the scattered flowers. When she straightened, her back was to him. His hands moved to rub the soft points of her shoulders.
“I’ve missed being with you, Maggie.” His voice was husky with meaning. “I’ve missed you.”
“I know.” Her head was bent, her expression hidden from him. “I missed you, too.” But the tone of her voice sounded deliberately light. In the next second, she was walking away from his hands. “Thank you for the flowers. They’re lovely.”
A frown plowed a furrow between his brows as he watched her walk to an outcropping of rock and sink to the ground to rest against it. He followed her after a few seconds, his keen gaze studying her smooth, expressionless features. He stopped near her feet, towering above her.
“What’s bothering you, Maggie?”
“Nothing,” she insisted, then looked up at him with a certain thoughtfulness. “You want to make love to me, don’t you?”
This candor wasn’t what he had expected, not that she wasn’t usually direct in her statements. He could scarcely deny her question, but he guessed it wasn’t sex that she wanted from him.
“Yes, I want to make love to you.” He lowered himself to the ground beside her. “But not if it isn’t what you want me to do.” With his back against the same rock, he hooked an arm behind her waist and started to pull her toward him. “Come here.”
“No, I don’t think I want—”